Naturally in the twenty first century all medical interventions are required, as much as possible, to be evidence based. Osteopathy and our other approaches to helping you be your best, are no exception.

The fact that until very recently osteopathy was a very small and underfunded profession in the UK is no excuse and it is good to see a small but growing body of research validating what countless patients and clinicians have found to be empirically valid for over a hundred years.

Most medical research is drug funded, and carries some well known problems because of that. Without these vast funds osteopathic research has lagged behind, until recent decades. However, there is a rapidly growing body of good quality, scientific research supporting osteopathy, acupuncture, psychotherapy, Applied Kinesiological and functional medicine research.

There is good evidence that osteopathy is effective for the treatment of persistent lower back pain. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends it as a treatment for this condition.

There is limited evidence to suggest it may be effective for some types of neck, shoulder or lower limb pain and recovery after hip or knee operations. Over the coming years it does not seem to be unrealistic to believe that a far wider and deeper level of research will help validate many of the effective interventions that we have been using over many years, and, like all research, perhaps change our minds about other things we thought were effective, that may prove to be less so, until then, here are a few links of interest: